[Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Announcing the Development Team Lead election

[Tomeu Vizoso]

Hi,

sorry for getting late to this discussion, have been traveling this weekend.

Just wanted to make some clarifications and to explain my position on this.

On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 18:48, Chris Ball <cjb at laptop.org> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Tomeu's stepping down as the Development Team Lead¹,

I actually stepped down as development team coordinator which is/was
an administrative role, I wasn't the development team leader because
that position has never existed before in our community. I tried to
make it very clear on the email you cite.

> and we'd like to
> elect a replacement.  This is an important position -- the team lead
> is responsible for setting clear goals for the team, being a
> responsive upstream for work we receive from the community, appointing
> a release manager for the next (0.90) release and helping to define
> its scope, and holding regular Development Team meetings on IRC,
> including coordination with the Design and Deployment Teams on new
> features.

Has there been any discussion on the creation of this role? Are there
plans to create such strong positions for other teams?

> There are more details on the role and the team here:
>
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Development_Team

But the wiki still refers to a chairman-like team coordinator, not to
the leader position with heavy responsibilities that you describe in
this email.

My concerns about the position you are describing on this email:

- "responsible for setting clear goals for the team": May not be what
you meant to say, but I think a single individual cannot be setting
goals for a team when most people are volunteers or employed by
several organizations. Maybe you meant "making sure that the team has
clear goals and is kept focused" which is what is in the wiki?

- "being a responsive upstream for work we receive from the
community": this sounds like a rather big responsibility to me. For
example, what will happen with modules that are unmaintained such as
hulahop and browse? If nobody has stepped up to maintain those since
they were orphaned, are we going to consider the team lead a failure
if nobody steps up in the future? If we put such a pressure on a
single individual, maybe that person will feel compelled to take
decisions that affect negatively other aspects such as QA or
deployment participation?

- "appointing a release manager for the next (0.90) release": if you
mean just formally appointing whoever the team members choose, then
I'm fine with it, but it's not obvious for me as it's expressed. What
about the other positions related to development, the team lead also
need to appoint those? Until now we have never seen two people
competing for a role, nor disagreement on a candidacy.

- "coordination with the Design and Deployment Teams on new features":
do we really need that the team leads takes this responsibility as
well? Or is assumed that the team lead will delegate it on others?

> The position is open to anyone; if you're interested in nominating
> yourself, just add your name and platform to:
>
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Development_Team/Team_Lead_Candidates_2010_05
>
> The platform -- and the election as a whole -- is an opportunity to
> express your view on development directions that Sugar should take.
>
> The nomination period will be open for seven days, closing at 00:00
> UTC on May 22nd.  Then the election will run for ten days, starting
> at 00:00 UTC on May 22nd and finishing at 00:00 UTC on June 1st.
> All Sugar Labs members are eligible to vote, and will receive a token
> for doing so by e-mail.  I've volunteered to run the election.

May I suggest that both candidates and voters are restricted to
development team members? This would encourage interested people to
join the team, strengthening it. I think that by giving some autonomy
to teams we'll be encouraging them to take ownership of their areas.

I agree is very important to find people interested on leading efforts
and taking responsibilities, but I think is equally important to have
a team structure that encourage division of work, diversity of
opinions and pooling of resources.

I'm also not sure we need a full-blown election with selectricity. I'm
thinking that open voting on the mailing list may be enough, unless we
are expecting that people won't vote freely without anonymity.

> Finally, many thanks to Tomeu Vizoso and Simon Schampijer for their
> great work as the Development Team Lead and Release Manager!

Thanks to you for taking this important task, I'm very happy to see we
are making progresses on this area. Hope the concerns I have raised
above aren't seen as push back but as sincere opinions.

Regards,

Tomeu

> - Chris.
>
> ¹:  http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2010-May/023825.html
> --
> Chris Ball   <cjb at laptop.org>
> One Laptop Per Chil
> _______________________________________________
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